DAVID ADAMS provides a round-up of some stories on the odder side of life…
An image of the map released in The Netherlands. PICTURE: Reuters TV
• An old map believed to mark the spot where German soldiers hid treasure worth millions of euros during World War II sparked the imagination of amateur treasure hunters in the Netherlands last week. Armed with metal detectors and shovels, groups wandered through the fields surrounding rural Ommeren in the east of the country after the map was made public by the Dutch National Archive on Tuesday. The archive said the map was believed to indicate where Nazi soldiers had hidden four large boxes filled with diamonds, rubies, gold, silver and all sorts of jewellery which they had looted after an explosion at a bank in August 1944. The map was obtained from a German soldier shortly after the war by the Dutch institute that was tasked with tracing German capital in the Netherlands after the country was freed from Nazi occupation in 1945. The research file which held the map was released as the maximum period of 75 years during which it could be held confidential had lapsed. Although the existence of the treasure could never fully be confirmed, the institute undertook various failed attempts to find it in 1947, National Archive spokeswoman Anne-Marieke Samson told Reuters. “We don’t know for sure if the treasure existed. But the institute did a lot of checks and found the story reliable,” Samson said. “But they never found it and if it existed, the treasure might very well have been dug up already.” – PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW/Reuters
• Police in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan have released details of some of the most unusual calls they received last year in a bid to highlight what not to call the emergency phone number 911 about. The list of the top 10 calls which “missed the mark” in 2022 include a caller asking the phone hotline’s operators if they knew the name of a polite Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer who had served in their community, a person who had swallowed a mosquito, choked and lost their dentures leaving them unable to eat their supper, and a person who said they were out of milk and asked RCMP officers to pick some up for them. “Please remember that 911 calls are reserved for police-related matters and life-threatening emergencies only,” the RCMP said in a statement.
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A navy member holds a dog rescued from the rocks at Chile’s Bio-Bio river mouth in Hualpen area, in this undated handout photo provided by the Chilean Navy on 5th January, 2023. PICTURE: Chilean Navy/Handout via Reuters
• Few would have thought a wet, helpless dog could survive for days trapped on the rocks of Chile’s second-largest river, on a cold and windy coastal stretch of the South American country. Named Sirena, which translates to mermaid, by her caretakers, the medium-sized black dog was rescued Thursday morning after being stuck at the mouth of the Biobio river some 500 kilometres from capital Santiago. Norman Ahumada, captain of San Vicente port and Corbeta Litoral, said the rescue had been complex due to poor weather and difficult sea conditions. But a group of firefighters and members of the Chilean Navy managed to rescue her a day after people from the local area of Hualpen alerted that Sirena was trapped. An animal support NGO took the rescued dog to a veterinary clinic. After undergoing exams, Sirena will be given up for adoption. – Reuters TV and NATALIA RAMOS/Reuters
